Rhythm
Most everything in business has a definitive rhythm. Every quarter is marked by various events of annual planning, budgeting, sales kickoffs, trade shows, and of course...summa' vacations, which no matter how carefully we plan around them, they always seem to impact our sales forecasts with delays.
Tags: entreprenurial, Sales Best Practices, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurshipfortherestofus, Teaching entrepreneurship, Teaching at Tufts University, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, Derby Entrepreneurship Center
The Dog Days of Summa are here in full force, and what are we already hearing since last week's turn of the calendar page?
Tags: Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, best sales practices;, business planning meetings, entrepreneurshipfortherestofus, Teaching at Tufts University, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, 2023 Marketing Plans
A wicked busy week combined with customers, fundraising for our new startup, and super excited about this week at The Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts as we enter into the final competition at the annual Tufts $100K Business Plan Contest being held this Thursday night from 6-9:00. If you want to participate online in this professional slice magic of entrepreneurship at its best, click here to register.
Tags: Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts, entrepreneurshipfortherestofus, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, 2023 Marketing Plans
Last Tuesday, I wrote about The Tufts $100K Business Plan contest and its upcoming semi-finals which occurred last Thursday night. 50 Plus solid teams of students and faculty who had completed detailed applications, provided business plans and videos were narrowed down to 15, who will now be moving on to the Finals to be held on April 13th 6:00-9:00 PM. I am looking forward to seeing you there! For more information on last Thursday and just superb examples of the reality of what true entrepreneurship is, please click here for our LinkedIn post.
Unfortunately, what has also occurred at exactly the same time is the very difficult situation caused by the mismanagement of the senior execs of Silicon Valley Bank, which continues to make waves in the tech market and will most probably cascade into the general banking community of small banks everywhere. Clearly a very tough situation, and for those of us who start and invest in companies, the reality of corrections we will now need to take will slow down what we should be doing at this time of year...which is figuring out how to better market and sell our products and services.
What we, as entrepreneurs, personally cannot control is the external banking environment and what will now assuredly result in in terms of tighter controls. For many weeks ahead, we'll listen to the histrionics of politicians, bankers and administrators pointing fingers at one another while mandating increased controls, and that, in turn, will hopefully reign in bad management.
In the meantime, what we can not only "control", but we can invest time and money into are a few of five business fundamentals of successful entrepreneurship. Success in entrepreneurship for the rest of us always ...especially in difficult times...comes down to intense leadership focus in markets, in product, and in selling value to real people and not allowing the team to be distracted.
https://www.brainshark.com/derbymanagement/vu?pi=zFGzu5funzFFz0
Just a few ideas to think about this morning while a different type of a wicked weatha' storm encompasses us here in Boston!
For more than a few ideas and real fingers-in-the-dirt details, take a look at our free Writing the Winning Sales Plan for 2023.
Or you can just email me, and I will send you a free copy, and, of course, you can connect with me at any time for questions, comments or just catching up.
CONNECT ANYTIME!
Connect with me at any time for some quick ideas and feedback.
There's never a cost for a call or two, plus I love listening and talking about Sales & Marketing.
www.derbymanagement.com
Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts.
Tags: angel investing, how to write a business plan, Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts, entrepreneurshipfortherestofus, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, 2023 Marketing Plans
With the snow now coming down heavily and with my birthday coming up next week, I am not going to recount the wicked storms I've been through.
Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, how to close sales, entrepreneurshipfortherestofus, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, 2023 Marketing Plans
Last week, I noted with great pride that Pitchbook's annual university rankings of the top producers of U.S. venture capital-backed startup founders listed Tufts in its top 50 universities in the country! Great to be listed alongside other MA-based universities like MIT, Harvard and BU, who also made the top 50. For me as a Tufts professor, this listing drives directly to the overarching mission of Tufts and its uniqueness to actively promote innovation and research across all of our 11 schools.
Tags: how to write a business plan, Tufts Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurshipfortherestofus, Teaching at Tufts University, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, 2023 Marketing Plans
Too many times, inexperienced entrepreneurs of all ages will use that deadly phrase. It reminds me of the old Ralph Waldo Emerson cliche of "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door."
In the cold reality of the science of entrepreneurship, most likely that path will be very narrow if it exists at all. As professional marketers, what we all want is for that small path to become a four-lane highway, and what we know is that will occur only through consistent marketing that doesn't talk about the product at all but highlights the value that the product brings. After all, we really don't need a better mousetrap; we just need to get rid of the mice quickly, efficiently and without looking at squished mice caught in an ugly trap.
Tags: Tufts marketing projects, branding plans, Making Tough Choices, Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts, 2022 business planning, entrepreneurshipfortherestofus, Teaching entrepreneurship
I love Tufts where I teach a course in Marketing and another in "The Science of Sales". Actually, considering the method that I use, both courses are deep into the engineering and analytics of their respective disciplines and follow a consistent thread of "Process-Tools-Technology-Metrics & People". Totally integrated into the courseware of building detailed marketing and sales plans for real companies, is the corresponding rigor of "The Marketing of You", where everyone needs to develop their personal Value Propositions for jobs.
Most importantly, at Tufts, we have a superb Career Center with very highly experienced leadership and hands-on advisors who really care about their work.
At this time, given 1,500+ alums who have gone through my courses, many of whom are now managers and looking to hire my recent graduates, plus a very wide network of thousands of business and investor connections, we can open a lot of job opportunities ranging from companies the size of Hubspot to Deloitte and Amazon down to tiny startups. The process is fun, often complex in a marketing sense, which makes it more fun, and, most importantly, very rewarding!
Tags: how to write a marketing plan, Sales Hiring & Onboarding, 2020 business plans, 2020 sales plans, 2022 business planning, 2022 sales planning, 2022businessplansuccess, entrepreneurshipfortherestofus, Teaching entrepreneurship, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts, 2023 Business Planning
Tufts classes are now deep into their second week, and my Marketing students are equally deep into their projects with 5-6 students assigned to each. In my consistent theme of "Marketing is Everything", which has been in my head, my writing, and basically everything I do in Sales and in Marketing, all my students are exploring and most importantly beginning to organize what will become fully developed marketing plans 10 weeks from now.
Tags: marketing projects, marketing effectiveness, sales culture, Tufts Marketing, marketing planning, Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts, 2022 business planning, entrepreneurshipfortherestofus, Teaching entrepreneurship
